The Secret of the Marauder's Map
by AClovelyWriter
Summary: The Marauder's Map. A curious piece of magic, surrounded by mystery since it was made. However it is now time for the origins of the map to come out.


**The Secret of the Marauders Map**

Outside Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the luminous white full moon highlighted the silhouettes of three fourth year students sneaking across the grounds towards the Whomping Willow. If the fourth year students in question had bothered to cast their eyes back to the castle they would have seen a young girl watching them with undivided attention and curiosity. The young girl, who was staring aimlessly out the window, witnessed the three fourth year students disappear and in their place were three animals. So the young girl did the first thing she could think of and that was to tell the only other person in common room, Lily Evans.

Lily Evans was sitting in her normal, quiet, secluded corner of the common room focusing all her energy on a potions essay for Professor Slughorn, when a young first year student ran towards her looking like she had just seen a ghost. Once Lily had calmed the young girl down, she found out what she had seen. At first Lily thought the young girl was just hallucinating and she should get some more sleep but something at the back of her head told her to hear her out. Lily also had a nagging feeling that the troublesome Marauders were behind this one.

A few hours later Lily was asleep in that same quiet, secluded, corner, she had tried to stay awake long enough to catch the Marauders in the process of sneaking back. However she had finished her essay an hour before, after which she found herself bored. She hadn't been sure how or why they had animals of various species outside but she was sure they were behind it. Alas Lily was not able to stay up very late in any situation so by the time the Marauders did sneak back into the common room, she was asleep.

"Prongs, look." Sirius was the first one to notice the snoozing Lily in the corner; James being careful not to make any noise limped up to his room and got his maroon blanket to lay over her. It was rather cold and she was only in her school uniform after all, she couldn't get mad at him for looking after her health. "Come on Prongs we need to get all our injuries sorted before anyone sees them and wonders what we got up to. You can be creepy and watch her sleep later."

"It isn't creepy Padfoot, she just looks so innocent when she is sleeping". An hour later James, with a slightly less obvious limp, went back down to the common room. He sat watching the flames of the fire licking the fireplace as it slowly diminished. They had all be hurt that night as Remus had been particularly restless, probably because he wasn't used to other animals being with him. He was scared himself or Sirius would get hurt, however how many people could say they spent a whole night with a werewolf and lived to tell the story. Looking over at the sleeping form of Lily he felt even more troubled as he couldn't stand the thought of leaving without her knowing how much he cared. Although he doubted she would ever accept it. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a noise coming from the far corner, Lily was stirring slowly. He stood up and walked over too her, to make sure she was ok.

"Potter?"

"Yes, Lily?"

"Why do I have a blanket over me?"

"Sorry you looked cold."

Looking at James with a look of slight confusion and wariness she continued. "Potter where were you tonight?"

"Looking for Sirius. He got lost."

"He got lost?" A questioning look etched on her face as she narrowed her eyes. "He has been at this school for three and half years and he got lost."

"Yep that's Padfoot always getting lost." Although James was hardly listening to her now, he had gotten sidetracked by the way her hair was messed up from sleeping on it and the fact she had ink smudged on her face.

"Potter!"

"Yes Lilykins?" James turned toward the obviously used Gryffindor sofas and threw himself onto one.

"Listen to me! What were you really doing tonight James and why are you limping?"

"Like I said Lily, finding Sirius. When we found him he was on his guard and he hexed me."

"Really? So you had nothing to do with three animals being on the grounds?"

"Hmmm.. Nope, nothing to do with us. Sorry, Lily, you'll have too look somewhere else for someone to blame."

"Potter you are insufferable and I will find out what you are up to. Goodnight Potter."

"Goodnight Lily." Watching Lily pick up her things and head upstairs to the girls dormitory he then sprinted up the other stairs and crashed through the door to see Sirius looking at his hair in the mirror and Wormtail was asleep in bed.

"Prongs! You and your girlfriend done flirting I see. Doesn't know anything does she?"

Disregarding the girlfriend quip he persisted with what he was going to say. " No she doesn't but I just had the greatest idea ever! We make a map of Hogwarts." The look of disappointment on Sirius's face was evident. "Padfoot it is not just that, it has the whole castle on it and we could charm it to show us where everyone is, whenever we want."

"Prongs that would be an amazing idea if it would work. We're fourth years for a start, we don't know that level of magic yet. How would we even begin?"

"We have Remus and I'm sure we could ask Lily and the teachers a few questions without raising too much alarm."

"You just want another reason to talk to Evans. Well I suppose Prongs, if you are that desperate we could give it a try, how did you even come up with it?"

"I am not desperate! Well Lily wanted to know where we had been tonight because she thought we had something to do with animals on the grounds. So I sort of lied and told her we were out looking for you because you had gotten lost, then she told me, to tell you to get a map."

"Ok Prongs. You told her I was lost, let me guess she didn't believe a word of it."

"Well no she didn't but it gave me the great idea."

"Prongs the problem is they would know it was us. Who else can pull off such amazing pranks?"

"They might know it is but they can't prove it, with the map and the cloak we will be unstoppable."

"Ok Prongs we might as well try it but I need my beauty sleep, I don't look like this without at least six hours sleep." James scoffed behind him, although he quickly feigned innocence.

Both boys went to sleep thinking of the idea that would surely change the way they pulled pranks. In the other dormitory, Lily slept soundly not knowing that she had inadvertently caused many of the pranks she would hold against James in years to come, and to her dying day she never knew.

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><p><em>AN: Thank you so much for reading my one shot. :) I loved this idea and I am pretty happy with the result as well. Any thoughts are welcomed in that little review box down there. The Marauder Era is my favorite so there will be more stories about them on my page at some point. Bye! Emma x<em>


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